Related Content

“It’s a very active, ongoing investigation,” said Major Henry Ott of the department’s arson unit.

Residents of the home say two men who lived there had a dispute with someone earlier in the year, which they thought had settled down.

One of those men, Byron Johnson, said he believes the individual set fire to the home earlier in the year and then set fire to the back of the house four times this week.

He is not sure why the individual began setting the fires again this week.

“We understand why it might have happened before, but this has just been going on and it's all been going on in the last week,” he said. “We're all asking the same question.”

Johnson declined to talk about the nature of the dispute.

He was at the house Friday with three other people who also lived there – his girlfriend Kaylee Herman, his brother Brandon, and another woman. His sister Realma, who was not with them, owns the home.

There was nothing they could salvage from the home, which was heavily damaged by smoke.

“I have nothing,” Herman said. “All my stuff got burnt.”

Herman was in the front yard Thursday night, cleaning out a car when the smoke alarm began sounding and two children ran out the front door screaming.

She briefly tried to put out the fire and then helped rescue the remaining children in the house.

“I kind of panicked,” she said. “You don't know what to do, your house is on fire and you can't put it out.”

In all, five children were in the house at the time, along with Herman and Realma Johnson.

Three of the children are Realma Johnson’s and two are relatives. One of them, a baby, was sleeping and two were in the bathtub. The two who ran out of the house were playing in the living room.

Byron Johnson said his sister spent Friday scrambling to find school supplies and clothes for her children.

“I mean, she lost everything, ’cause all her clothes were in the back room where it started,” Byron Johnson said of his sister. “So, she lost everything. All the kids clothes, uniforms, all the things she just bought for them, you know, backpacks. She lost everything. She lost her home.”